In order to cover all bases, a proper review of the Alpinestars GP PRO gloves would need to really involve a decent sized crash in which you slide down the road in them, but despite spending the last 2 days at the Pannoniaring circuit in Hungary with 1000ps.at riding at speeds far in excess of any I have ridden before I am sorry to say I didn’t crash and truly test the gloves properly.

I kept leaning the various bikes I was riding (Triumph Street Triple, 2016 Aprilia Tuono 1100 V4 RR, 2016 Kawasaki Z300, 2016 KTM EXC250 Supermoto) over way past any angles I had done in the past, but they all took it easily in their stride. In fact since this was my first ever time on a street race track they were probably chuckling to themselves at being used so far from their limits!

So what about the gloves? Well, I normally wear M for motocross gloves, but the L size of the GP Pro glove fit me perfectly so that’s what I used. They are a bit like a well made Crème brûlée. Hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Starting with the inside, you put them on and the leather feels incredibly soft from the start. They are ergonomically cut so you can grip the bike straight away without any of that stretching feeling you get from some other new leather gloves. They have kangaroo leather palms (sorry skippy!) which are amazingly soft and stretchy for leather as well as an accordion stretch insert to help you move your thumb.

There is a wrist closure to give you some extra security and stop the gloves coming off in a crash, and if you do come off, you have massive protection on the top as well as some KEVLAR reinforcements at key points. The big wrap around plastic piece above your wrist has a velcro closure to hold the glove on tight and also offers some solid protection because I would imagine that is often the first point of contact with the tarmac. They have a TPR vent on top to provide some ventilation, although they do still get hot when it’s 30+ degrees out like it was for us.

The little finger is attached to the next finger with a little bridge to avoid ripping your finger off in a crash which is a benefit to everybody with 4 fingers.

I used the pirelli app for one session on the street triple and had a top speed of 225km/h with a lean angle of 51.7 degrees.
On the supermoto track they also worked well although for the kind of clutching I needed to do on the 250EXC 2 stroke I could have done with something a little more reduced. For riding motocross I like my gloves as minimal as possible, but on the street if you plan to push it at all then quite simply, if you value your hands, then you need gloves like this. Most of the time you don’t even think about having them on, but when you do they provide you with the peace of mind you need when on your bike to focus on riding and not what will happen if you come off. Like me you might not be a pro, but you certainly feel like one as soon as you put these things on! Or a storm trooper which is just as cool.